For all the melancholy enthusiasts out there, here is a song about quiet restlessness of solitude. I discovered it in the first volume of Franjo Ksaver Kuhač’s collection of South Slavic folk songs (“Južno-slovjenske narodne popievke”), where it is found as a song with Kuhač’s piano accompaniment. Both the author of the poem and the melody are anonymous, but possibly they were one and the same person.
As I grew up in former Yugoslavia, Slavic melancholy is never too far from my heart. A frequent theme in Slavic literature, music and art, it is characterized by strong feelings of sadness and longing. It is often accompanied by a sense of complete hopelessness, to the point that life becomes not worth living.
My companion on this project was legendary Shira Kammen. We lifted the melody from Kuhač’s collection, and left behind his piano accompaniment. Shira created an incredibly rich texture that suspends this song in its place of quiet suffering.
We recorded it at Q Division Studios in December 2024. It was engineered, mixed and mastered by Joel Edinberg. It's available for streaming on Amazon, Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and all the other platforms.
Multi-instrumentalist and occasional vocalist Shira Kammen has spent well over half her life exploring the worlds of early and traditional music. Raised by a violinist mom and a scientist dad who was a serious amateur singer, Kammen studied music at the University of California at Berkeley. Across her career she has performed and recorded with countless early-music ensembles and coached countless players in workshops around the country. She is particularly renowned for her skill as an improviser, something she first contemplated as a young player when she realized that not every recording of the same piece sounded the same. She gives credit to her mentor, vielle player Margriet Tindemans, for encouraging her to develop her improvisatory skills.
A Star in the Medieval Firmament
Sve Veselo a Ja Tužan
Jošt ne sviti biela zora,
Niti trepti listom gora,
Ne čuje se glas slavuja,
Zoru da predkaže.
Ne čuje se ni zefira,
Niti svirka od pastira,
Još tišina svuda vlada,
Sve živo počiva.
Svaka tvarka u pokoju
Bar osjeća sladost koju,
A od mene pokoj bježi,
Daleko - daleko.
All is cheerful yet I am sad
The white dawn has not yet broken,
There is no flicker of leaves in the mountain,
One yet doesn’t hear the song of the nightingale
Foretelling the dawn.
Not even a zephyr is heard,
Nor the shepherd's flute,
Silence still reigns everywhere,
All that is alive is at rest.
All things quiet
feel some of life's sweetness,
But quietude runs away from me,
Far - far away.